


Second Chances

by claimedbydaryl



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Fix-It, Fluff, M/M, Romance, also there is reference to the stupid gay acorn scene, alternate ending I guess?, its sweet and cute and everything you wanted, like it follows the canonical events of BotFA but then it goes to an AU, there is a happy ending trust me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:49:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3722725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claimedbydaryl/pseuds/claimedbydaryl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reborn into a new life, Bilbo Baggins awakes to a world he doesn't know, but yet he still waits for his wounds to be healed with the touch of familiar calluses of large, blacksmith-rough hands and a fierce, ice-blue gaze burning upon him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Second Chances

**Author's Note:**

> Eh, I felt some feels and decided to write some fix-it fanfiction. You know the drill, cherries.

**Part One: Memories Of A Different Time**

Three times Bilbo had touched Thorin, and thrice had he known that the feeling deep in his chest, like the roots of a tree connected to his heart and stretching outwards, was much more than camaraderie. The emotion was based on a mutual trust and friendship, cementing the unbreakable bond which bound the Company together, but it ran parallel to an undercurrent of a spark, of a promise of something foreign and good. It was conveyed in the smallest of actions—fond, private smiles and the gentle brush of fingertips on bare skin and the absence of space between their bodies.

The first time Bilbo had felt the stirrings of _more_ low in his stomach, a flutter of nerves and confusion, the soft pink of blush had spread across his cheeks. They—him and his Company—were atop a rocky outcrop, high on the adrenaline and terror after their frightening encounter with the Pale Orc—the mere mention of his name still caused a coldness to grip Bilbo’s stomach tight—and subsequently escaping on the feathered backs of the mighty Eagles. Blood-spattered, sore and spent, Thorin had called him a burden then, with cold eyes and an accusing tone, and Bilbo had felt so inadequate and out-of-place in that moment than he had in his entire life. But all his doubts and fear had been wiped cleaned as Thorin had advanced upon him, his gaze soft as he admitted, _“I have never been more wrong in all my life.”_

Thorin’s arms were thick and sure around Bilbo, his closeness and warmth acting as a reassurance. Their embrace was sudden and brief, but what it lacked in length it made up for in magnitude. Thorin’s hands settled midway down Bilbo’s back, and Bilbo’s own hands had done the same to Thorin, both much too tight in their hold—the touch was laden with an innate sense of rightness, a belonging of sorts. Thorin had too been shocked by the unexpected emotion welling in his chest, overwhelming him, a feeling which he had not experienced since leaving his home of Erebor. He was content to just hold Bilbo, to enjoy that comfort and safety his embrace offered for just a few moments more without pondering why.

And Bilbo had blinked, a smile pulling at his lips and a whisper of something intimate curling low in his stomach, and then it had ended. The pair had lingered—gazes locked, fingers lapsing on the fur, cloth, or steel of clothing—in the final moments of their embrace; the background rendered to a muted landscape of the rising sun, jagged mountaintops and a carpet of green.

It was then and only then had Bilbo begun to realise what he felt for Thorin Oakenshield surpassed a newfound mutual respect and trust, and from that moment onwards Bilbo’s dreams were specific to fur-lined surcoats, coloured in rich dark blues and hues of black, fitted to an achingly familiar figure with a noble demeanour and large, rough hands.

The second instance Bilbo’s odd yet not unwelcome feelings for Thorin were cemented as something more than simple infatuation and rather a deep-rooted fondness occurred in the cavernous maze of King Thranduil’s kingdom, fraught with unspoken emotion albeit brief.

Bilbo had snuck into the woodland palace, his stealth invisible even to the keen, practised eyes of the Mirkwood elves. He remembered stepping from the darkness to hold up the set of dungeon cell keys and offer what hope he could to the Company’s despairing plight. His gaze had found Thorin’s first—searching his exposed flesh for wounds and his eyes for a dullness which he could not repair—and the corners of his mouth had already lifted to form a fond, tiresome, soothing smile. Thorin’s returned the gesture with an expression of shock and confusion, his almost-brutal features unschooled in a confession of relief and joy as he closed the space between him and Bilbo in two quick strides.

It was a brief snapshot in time when the pair looked—even though it was more close to gazed—at each other a little too long and a little too hard, oblivious to the cries of triumph around them. Thorin wanted to reach out and touch Bilbo, to feel the rough fabric of his ruined coat and make sure he was real and tangible. But he couldn’t do that, not here—not when his feelings where still a mystery to him, a faint echo of affection in the long-forgotten cave of his heart.

Bilbo had felt that pull too—the string that bound the two together, their souls inexplicably interwoven but their inevitable fate not yet acknowledged—and he was at the gate of Thorin’s cell before he could even contemplate the action. His fingers moved on their own accord, wrapping around the cold metal bars of the gate, mere inches from where Thorin’s own lay by his side. He wanted—more in this moment that any other—to kiss the crownless king, but instead he dropped Thorin’s gaze reluctantly, weighted down by the feeling of the Company’s eyes on his back.

He fiddled with the lock and key, the beating of his heart loud and erratic in pace, and Bilbo was struck momentarily by the sudden contact of Thorin’s hands. His palms—large and rough and burned with the work of a blacksmith—closed around the metal bar and his fingers—thick and long and calloused, absent of jewelled rings and the hilt of a sword or axe—brushed Bilbo’s ever-so-slightly. His head jerked up, hands stilling, eyes meeting Thorin’s in a fleeting glance that was fraught with meaning. His chest ached a little, and Thorin’s lips parted in a breathless gasp.

But then Bilbo forced his mind to work on the task at hand, occupying his thoughts with saving his friends rather than romancing the one he cared about the most of all.

And the third pivotal instance when Bilbo knew—with every fibre of his being—that what he felt for Thorin surpassed affection or the simple companionship, still caused his eyes burn with unshed tears. The battle of the five armies—the race of men, elves, orcs and the dwarves of both Erebor and the Iron Hills all colliding, clashing, and fighting—marked the first time Bilbo realised it was love—an emotion so pure and so sacred he was willing to risk life and land to keep Thorin safe, even at his own personal cost.

He had awaken with a sharp pain drilling into his head and a line of blood on his brow, surrounded with the constant thrum of war—wails and cries and screams of flesh and metal and bone. Bilbo had noticed the Eagles with a naïve relief, before realising that Fíli was dead, and Kíli was last sighted with his ill-fated brother, and Dwalin was nowhere to be seen. And _Thorin_ —Thorin had set upon his own personal mission, determined to defeat Azog the Defiler, to avenge his kin’s deaths and reclaim his homeland once and for all.

Filled with an unnameable terror that seized his throat and a weight which settled low his stomach, Bilbo had scrambled to his feet in search of the King Under The Mountain. And there, laid limp on the frozen length of a river, his head cradled on ice-encrusted rock, was Thorin.

Bilbo had rushed to his side, hands hovering over the dwarf’s broken, bloodied body with a sort of frustrating helplessness, not sure what to search for or how to fix it. A moan was ripped from his throat as he registered the sight of blood, stark red on the pastel of white ground, and Bilbo’s fingers carefully parted the darkened rip of fabric that stretched across Thorin’s midsection. Bile threatened to rise in the back of his throat, a bitter taste soon coating his tongue thickly. He wished it wasn’t true, that his eyes had deceived him—that Thorin couldn’t be bleeding out in thick waves of red in front of him, he couldn’t be.

“Bilbo,” Thorin said, desperate and hoarse and raw, “I wish to part with you in friendship.”

But he did not know that Bilbo felt more than friendship for Thorin, an emotion which was _more_ in every sense of the word. And then it seemed he wanted to do everything at once, to tell Thorin that their mountaintop embrace had stirred something high in his chest, that it had grown in span and warmth and feeling to develop into this—this thing that built up and spilt out in a hopeless rush, an emotion that was equal parts heart-wrenching and uncontrollable and unique.

He remembered pleading, and crying, and the desperate attempt to reassure Thorin—and himself—that their fateful ending would be a happy one, but to no avail. His actions were in vain. But he could still remember the solid warmth of Thorin under his palms, the press of armour and fur and leather, the wet blood of his friend congealing between his fingers and the nameless terror which grasped his heart in sharp, cold claws and refused to let go.

But Bilbo had watched the life slip from Thorin’s gaze.

And a piece of his soul, forever intertwined to someone else’s, had also been lost.

 _If this was love_ , Bilbo thought, _he did not want it._

He knew now that he did love Thorin—but the feeling was painful rather than blissful in its realisation. It was the loss of something more precious than land or riches; it was most keenly felt in the cold, hard silence of the night, in the space of time which should’ve been spent with someone else, made to be surrounded with laughter and cheer and happiness. It was the brief glimpse of something good and pure in the limited months Bilbo and Thorin had spent together, to be ripped from their grasp without warning. It was the memories—the smiles and touches, the warmth in their hearts and contentment settling their turbulent thoughts—that would be relayed a million times over in Bilbo’s mind to remember images which had begun to fade, washed of colour and edges blurred into nonsensical shapes.

Their love was shared in the smallest fragment of time, a glimpse of something that would’ve have redefined the word _profound_ , but instead a lifetime remained to ponder what-could-have-been.

The feeling—as all feelings did—dulled over a period, not as violent, or with the power to steal the breath from Bilbo’s lungs or cause his vision to fill with the prickle of tears. But it—the vestige of love—remained, lodged in his chest, triggered at the happenstance of an errant thought filtering through his mind, or in glimpsing the inside of his box of treasures, filled to the brim with precious memorabilia of Bilbo’s arduous and unforgettable travels. It—the pressure in his chest, the whisper of a touch on his skin, the sight of blood patterning his fingertips—acted as a constant reminder of Thorin, and an emotion which Bilbo could ignore and repress but not fully erase.

Even when Bilbo died—his skin wrinkled and hair dull and his pocket absent of a ring he both despised and loved—and his eyelids had fluttered shut, it was still there—an omnipresent consciousness which both mourned the loss of Thorin yet rejoiced in the having ever felt his soul so closely aligned to another’s.

During the last seconds of Bilbo’s long and fulfilling and heartbreaking life, his thoughts had been of Thorin alone, and he had wished there was one final, impossible chance that their ill-fated relationship had not ended on a sheet of frozen ice and rock and blood, hearts true but their words lacking.

And when he slipped into the waiting abyss it was devoid of sight or sound of Thorin, and when he did awake in the modern world it was clear that Bilbo and Thorin’s story had not ended but instead it had been merely delayed.

**Part Two: Your Hand On Mine**

Reborn into his new life, Bilbo had been plagued by the dreams—the flashbacks, the fragmented memories of a different time. He awoke with his skin drenched in a sheen of cold sweat, hair plastered to his brow and limbs shaking. His mind—and also his routine counselling sessions—told him that the dreams was a manifestation of his imagination, but Bilbo knew it was real. Because he could remember the taste of Shire-cultivated strawberries on his tongue, of the soft pelt of grass under the thick and the impenetrable soles of his hobbit feet and wind on his face.

And, most of all, he remembered Thorin.

He recalled the scratch of his beard against his cheek and the elegant lines of silver in his hair. Their foreheads pressed together and hearts intertwined, beating as one. Of the slim, sharp line of Orcist poised to the side of his confident fighting stance, an extension of Thorin’s body rather than an ungainly attachment. And the endless stretch of gold that had painted the sky above when Thorin had slipped from Bilbo’s grasp, his fingers still wet with the king’s blood and his soul shattered in one fateful blow.

In the modern era, Bilbo was a middle-aged Englishman who still held a set of antiquated manners in high esteem, fussing over the state of his clothes and the tidiness of his home, and his affinity for gardening had become a career rather than a simple hobby. He resided in a small stone cottage amidst the deep green of the countryside, maintaining a neat household and an impeccable garden, a single oak tree having grown deep into the rich soil and taken root in the ground as much as it had in Bilbo’s soul. He took great pleasure in his comforts of home, but his solitary existence was no more than a whisper of a live well lived, save for the infrequent instances in which his nephew Frodo visited.

Because he was in constant waiting of a phantom to return and fill the hollow that had been carved into his chest, for his wounds to be healed with the touch of familiar calluses of large, rough hands and a fierce, burning gaze upon him.

He had never lost hope, not when his dreams still carried the memory of Thorin Oakenshield.

Of the reassuring circle of arms which had curled around his much-smaller body.

Of their hands which had grazed in the dungeons of an elf king.

Of their foreheads which had pressed together as the battle waged and warred around them.

And that is how he, Bilbo Baggins, dressed simply in a pair of dark jeans, a button-down T-shirt and a light fleece jacket, came to be walking down the darkened street in the sweet swell of a lazy summer night. It was a small town, quaint in style and suitably low-key, which appeased to Bilbo’s tastes. He had travelled there with the intention to hide away in the dim, forgotten corner of a local pub and mull his thoughts over the rim of a pint. But it was nearing midnight, and his feet had taken him on a path through the cobblestone streets, his too-thin shoes crusted in a fine layer of snow and his nose flushed red with cold, and his skin—naturally tanned and freckled in the warm glow of the sun outside—a shade paler than normal.

He heard the faint noises of speech, further down the street. Bilbo didn’t raise his head to spare them a glance; instead he hunched his shoulders against the chilling buffet of wind and quickened his pace, in haste to escape the suffocating presence of others. Because the night sky was clear, and the intricate design of stars twinkled above, and Bilbo was thinking of someone else—someone he once knew but had never met, at least not in this life.

The footsteps grew closer, consistent in step and brisk.

Bilbo rubbed a hand over his nose, attempting to coax some form of warmth back into the marrow of his bones. He noticed how his hands were shaking, and how his stomach had dropped, but he ignored the feeling. It was just the cold, nothing more.

And the footsteps stilled, faltering—Bilbo registered the sound of one pair now, not three.

An inexplicable sensation—an unseen tether that had once wound his soul to another’s—caused his pace to slow and drew his chin upwards, to seek out the person who shared the space of the street with him. His gaze rose from the ground—inlaid with stone and wet with snow—and met another’s who was intense and blue and all-together familiar—

—And his heart stopped.

His foot slipped, losing purchase, and then he was falling. He met the stone pavement in a sickening snap of his head and his vision went black, and all he could think was _no_.

Before he opened his eyes, before he could even register the ache in his chest, Bilbo felt the cold.

He awoke with a start; mouth opening to suck in huge lungfuls of air in which he was so deprived of. He felt like he had been punched square in the chest, that his heart had lain dormant until this moment, when it had been kick-started to life. The sound of blood rushing in his ears was loud, a rhythmic _thud-thud thud-thud_ that beat in a natural, steady tandem, grounding him amongst this sheer madness. He blinked rapidly to adjust to the sudden darkness, not allowing himself to move yet—not trusting himself too. It was then—the texture of snow cold and foreign underneath his paralysed fingertips, a repugnant smell burrowing deep into his sinus, his skin feeling as if it had been stretched too tight—that he noticed the man crouching above him, his figure illuminated by the faint orange-soft glow of a distant streetlamp.

The breadth of his shoulders was broad, his arms corded with a strength and brawn Bilbo would never know, a muscle working in the tanned column of his neck. His hair was long and black, tied at the base of his neck and curling ever-so-slightly, a few streaks of grey slashing through the length of thick, voluminous colour. Two braids dangled on either side of his head, interwoven with large silver beads. His beard was dark and thick—Bilbo could still recall the feel of it pressed to the side of his head, the words _“I have never been more wrong”_ circulating in his mind. The man looked as if he was hewn from stone, almost timeless, belonging to a time where dragons were feared and gold was only a measure of ones worth. He bore a noble stature, emanating with a superior air of regal grandeur that went hand-in-hand with an omnipresent sense of haughtiness. And his eyes—the same blue, as bright and cold as ice, that had clouded with sickness and then cleared with purpose—stared down at Bilbo, unblinking. Impassive.

Bilbo had seen him draped in fine silks and armour, in fur and leather and wool, even with a crown resting upon his brow, and later with a splatter of blood painting the noble features of his face in shades of red. He remembered that exact moment with a stark vividness he could never forget—hair strewn across the rock, a dark pool of blood seeping through his shirt and staining Bilbo’s fingers with the last of Durin’s line, his flesh bruised and broken and mangled beneath his tentative touch. He had died in Bilbo’s arms. Bilbo’s heart had forever borne the mark of a crack since then, a fissure which had spread throughout his whole being—his soul cleaved in two, his other half having left this world—

And he could never forget his name.

His attire was outlandish in fashion, dressed in a long coat with a large woollen collar, the dark green hem reaching him mid-thigh. His dark coat was unbuttoned at the neck—he must have been a right lunatic to be wearing that out in the cold—to expose a pale V-neck shirt beneath, the dipping neckline revealing an expanse of smooth, firm flesh. His jeans were dark and fitted, moulded to his body, and a toe of one of his large steel-capped boot brushed Bilbo’s arm. The point of contact was enough to affirm his inklings—

 “Thorin?” It was no more than a whisper, a stuttered breath escaping past his lips.

He shifted over Bilbo, the fabric of his jeans straining with the movement, wrestling with an inner turmoil.

“Thorin?” he pleaded, needing to know this wasn’t a ruse—that Thorin was real and that he was here, with Bilbo despite everything that had transpired.

 “ _Thorin, please_.”

The broken whimper in Bilbo’s voice caused Thorin’s chin to jut up, gaze snapping to his and holding.

“Bilbo?” Hearing the sound of the rich baritone of Thorin’s voice was like coming home, like a balm that soothed all hurts within Bilbo, healing the raw and bleeding scars with one single word—his name.

He cried out, his vision blurring with tears. The cold, the faint breath of wind, and the uneven ground under his pliable back—it hurt, it ached, but Bilbo was here with Thorin. That meant something—it had to. Not after he had lost him on a forgotten battlefield, in a different time and place to this strange world, spent of emotion as he watched Thorin slip from his grasp. Unable to change his fate—that was his punishment, his burden to bear until death—that was what had tormented Bilbo throughout the rest of his natural life.

“Bilbo?” Thorin’s dark brow was furrowed in concern; oblivious to how the thick carpet of snow melted beneath his warmth and weight, staining the fabric of his jeans black. His fingers reached forward, stopping a hair’s width from Bilbo’s face, hanging suspended in the air.

“I waited,” Thorin said, his voice ragged. “I knew all I had to do was wait, and so I did.”

A tear slipped unbidden down Bilbo’s pallid cheek.

“I knew time was but a measurement of one’s devotion”—his fingertips grazed Bilbo’s skin, cupping the side of his head in an intimate hold, and Thorin gasped at the contact—“and love.”

Bilbo’s heart expanded, bursting with a golden swell of emotion that replaced the pain in his skull and the chill in his bones. He felt as if he was tearing at the seams, balancing on the precipice of life and death—because if he fell into the open maw of the waiting abyss, he would lose Thorin forever.

When he spoke his voice was hoarse, and his head was mass of disconnected thoughts. “I thought—” he choked, white-hot pain lancing through him. He tried again, his words inarticulate and his speech limited. He wanted to tell Thorin he waited too, that there was no mortal obstacle that could separate them, but instead Bilbo said, “I thought you were dead.”

Although a thin veil of confusion, disappointment and hurt was present in Thorin’s expression, his gaze softened, and grew fond. “And I you.”

“Then why are we here?”

Thorin glanced up, as if he was just noticing their surroundings. “In the modern world?”

“Is that a good thing?” Bilbo asked suddenly, breathless, hopeless. “That we met again?”

The former King Under The Mountain laughed, a sound so beautiful it caused Bilbo to smile, to feel as if this was a normal occurrence he hadn’t hoped and dreamed would be made flesh over the last millennia.

“Yes,” Thorin breathed in a low tone, almost reverent, “it is.”

And he kissed Bilbo.

Bilbo did not expect to be kissed so soon—however he did desire to be with Thorin, both physically and emotionally, but rather when his thoughts were whole and his fingers had regained feeling than now—but he succumbed to the sensation after a moment’s hesitation nonetheless. Thorin’s lips were chapped with the cold, and they were rough, made to be bitten and sucked and teased. His kiss was as fierce as his emotion, bruising in force and absent of the gentleness Bilbo knew he possessed. Because this kiss had been prolonged for far too long, over centuries spent in self-imposed solace and haunted by a memory.

It seemed Thorin was desperate to feel and taste every part of Bilbo at once—his kiss all-consuming and his hands drifting in furious succession from the lapels of Bilbo’s jacket to the small of his back and the slope of his cheekbones and the curve of his thigh. Thorin’s hands fisted his hair once, nipping at his lower lip and swiping his tongue across the seam of his lips, seeking access to Bilbo’s mouth.

Bilbo complied—he really had no choice in the matter, he would give whatever Thorin would take. His hands had curled into loose fists against the solid wall of Thorin’s chest before straying upwards as the past king of old slid his tongue into Bilbo’s mouth, hot and slick. Bilbo moaned, arousal pooling low in his stomach and his head swum. His fingers grazed the thick stubble of Thorin’s beard, threading into the mane of his hair and brushing the archaic braids which dangled there. The sensation sent shivers down his spine

Thrust into a sudden whirlwind of fervent passion, Bilbo was revelling in the long-awaited return of Thorin, not drinking in the mere presence of him but _drowning_ in it.  A ball of emotion had lodged halfway up his chest—his eyes burned with unshed tears, his fingers shook, and his heart beat an erratic tune. It was all too much and yet not enough, but all Bilbo could hear rushing in his ears was one word, a mantra which never ceased— _finally_.

“Thorin,” Bilbo near-growled, rising onto his knees and slipping into Thorin’s lap, pushing him backwards until his arse landed firmly on the ground. He didn’t seem to mind, a smile curving against Bilbo’s lips and his large hands a sure and steady weight on his hips.

“Bilbo,” Thorin whispered in response, his tone soft in comparison to Bilbo’s.

The once-hobbit pulled back at the wrecked sound his friend—their kiss surely ruled out the further use of the seemingly innocent term—had uttered and confusion furrowed his brow. He leaned forward, nosing Thorin affectionately like an errant puppy, asking a question in the gentle flash of a smile. Despite the rush of blood pumping in their veins and the uncontrollable happiness welling in their hearts, they felt like if they stopped touching or moving they would lose what they had just—finally—gained.

It was a private and intimate moment in which Bilbo had not experienced before, and he knew the words were rising on his tongue—and it was mirrored in the uncommon vulnerability of Thorin’s tear-wet gaze—and it would soon spill out in a jumble of thoughts and blubbered confessions.

Instead, Bilbo and Thorin’s almost-interlude was broken by a sudden but not unwelcome interruption.

“Uncle?” The voice belonged to a memory rather than a person, a sweet and youthful exuberance which was the cause for all things bright and good in this world.

“Kíli?” Bilbo murmured, turning his head but not wanting—or willing—to break contact with Thorin. However, his hands remained a permanent fixture on Bilbo’s waist and Bilbo’s fingers curled in Thorin’s thick hair even tighter.

The youngest Durin stood a few strides from Bilbo, his appearance unkempt and emanating with the same roguish charm he had a lifetime ago. A hood was pulled up over his head, a dark, tousled curtain of hair framing his angular face, and a soft plaid jumper was tied in a knot around his slim waist. He looked the same though—a hint of beard, lips pulled into a crooked smile, deserving more than the world had once offered him.

“Bilbo?” Fíli appeared beside Kíli, making the two halves a whole—brothers finally reunited.

“Fíli? You’re here too?”

His blond hair was shorter now, cleaner too, pulled into a loose bun at the base of his neck. His beard was well-groomed, shaved into a fine bristle of stubble. He wore leather gloves and a tan coat, both fitted close to his figure, and pale, laced-up boots. He looked leaner, as did Kíli, with a more dangerous edge to him. Both seemed to be less dwarf, Bilbo realised—lacking in the burliness that Thorin still possessed, absent of axe-practiced hands and braids interwoven with beads, an echo of a distant and ancient custom.

“You’re alive?” Bilbo whispered, his vision clouded with tears and a dull ache resounding in his chest. Thorin’s grip tightened on Bilbo, slipping to encircle his back and wrapping further around the smaller man’s figure, pulling him against his chest with a gentle forcefulness.

“Yeah,” Fíli remarked, glancing at his brother beside him and then at Bilbo and Thorin, his smile fond.

“We are,” Kíli finished. “We’re alive. All of us—Durin’s sons.”

**Part Three: Our Hearts Intertwined**

Six months and Bilbo felt like he was floating on air. A series of events had spurred the start of his and Thorin’s relationship—not camaraderie or infatuation or simple respect, but a true relationship—in motion. It was clear what their feelings entailed—what they had always been, emotions which had been repressed and ignored and suffered for a millennia.

The first step was their reunion—all four of them hunkered down in the pub Bilbo had planned on visiting that night and, almost eerily, in the same darkened booth. They talked about how they were, who was still alive, and why this had happened—unanswerable questions. Even now it was a blur of information which Bilbo still had trouble understanding, but all he knew was that he didn’t care. Because Bilbo did not once let go of Thorin’s hand or relent in pressing their thighs together for the span of the entire blissful night, from night till morning, even when the pink light of dawn peaked over the horizon and his fingers ached.

Fíli and Kíli farewelled him at the threshold of the pub and made their way home, arms supporting each other and their movements dulled with the golden buzz of alcohol. Thorin picked up Bilbo’s hands when his nephews were safely out of view and pushed him back into the wooden exterior of the building, ensuring there was no space between them. He carefully placed one of Bilbo’s fingers in his mouth and _sucked_. In plain view of the public eye, an experimental yet deliberate roll of Thorin’s hips elicited a tortured moan from Bilbo—and he soon came to the conclusion that he was a man of the filthiest intentions.

The second step was… something that caused Bilbo’s cheeks to flush red at the mere thought of it. Bilbo had spent so long in yearning of Thorin’s smile and the sound of his voice and his rich laughter filtering through the room that the idea of intimate relations— _sex_ —had rarely crossed his mind.

Their first night together after all that time separated had been fraught with emotion, and the pair was not nearly sated with the decided lack of touch or feel or taste between them. But after their initial interlude on the street and in the pub and on the street again, it was clear that this night would end in one or the other’s bed, somehow. So, Bilbo and Thorin stumbled outside into the lukewarm air, and into a cab, and with a vague mumbling of directions the driver had them at Bilbo’s cottage in no less than half an hour—the two of them almost fused together in the back seat by the end of it.

Bilbo threw a few crumpled notes at the cabbie before stumbling outside the vehicle in a jumble of limbs and incoherent whispers, Thorin’s hand gripping his tight. As the cab turned around, gravel crunching beneath the roll of tyres, Thorin had stopped Bilbo at the wooden gate which opened to his prize-winning garden. Because, although Bilbo’s quaint English cottage was a picturesque building that would suit the front of any postcard, his beloved garden was what drew the eye. Lush and green and thriving with vibrant life, it was meticulously tended throughout the course of the year, filled with brightly-coloured vegetables, wildflowers, herbs, shrubs and other domesticated plants, and a rolling meadow pasture stretched beyond the surrounding confines of a stone hedge. But what had caught Thorin’s intention was this: there, nestled in the furthermost corner of Bilbo’s garden, coaxed to life over a number of decades, was an oak tree.

“You’ve carried it all this way?” Thorin asked, his earnest quietness a tad unsettling. “Why?”

“Every time I look at it I’ll remember. Remember everything that happened.” Bilbo felt Thorin take a step closer to him, his warm breath on his bare neck—sending tingling sensations spreading over his skin. But this emotion was not borne of lust, but instead something fonder and more pure, a deep quelling of the turmoil which had plagued his mind forever. Thorin’s hands slid around his waist, fitting in perfect balance, and a soft kiss pressed to the side of Bilbo’s head. “The good, the bad,” he continued without thinking to stop, “and how lucky I am that I made it home.”

Thorin sighed, his body weighing a little more heavily on Bilbo’s back as if in defeat.

“But Bag End was only a home in the physical sense of the word,” Bilbo said, turning around in Thorin’s embrace, his hands again clutching helplessly at his coat, “because I soon realised—almost tragically, a little too late—that my home was a person rather than a place.” Bilbo’s forehead came to rest at the centre of Thorin’s chest, cushioned by a layer of wool and cloth and flesh, a rhythmic heart pounding of his heart beneath. “And when I lost that person, I lost my home too.”

A moment of stillness followed, and Thorin’s breath caught in his throat. Bilbo’s grasp on the lapel of his jacket tensed, his knuckles white with pressure, and he closed his eyes to ignore an ominous feeling which rose in his stomach—like all they were balanced on a tenuous string which felt like it could snap at any given moment. But in a short instant Thorin’s fingertips had grazed his tear-slick cheeks, cupping Bilbo’s face in too-large hands, engulfing him whole.

Thorin’s smile was heartbreaking. “I lost my home too.”

They kissed under the star-lit sky, lips stained with the salt of tears and hearts exposed.

Inside their actions had been fuelled by something more furious, more desperate, pretences forgotten in the insatiable need to be as close as physically possible. It was a wonder they had even made it to bed, seeing as if they were fully naked halfway up the stairs.

Illuminated in the dim shine of moonlight, Bilbo and Thorin had limited time to admire the other, hands roughly covering bare skin and fingers digging in rather than taking the care to caress. Kisses were demanding rather than kind, or affectionate. Words were whispered harshly and drawers were flung open and sheets were rumpled and ripped in haste to finally come together as they wished, in the true joining of their souls—as they had craved for centuries, daring to hope but never truly believing it could be real. Thorin had poised himself above Bilbo, his legs resting in a delicate arc over his lover’s broad shoulders, and long, mused hair tickling his skin. Thick arms rested on either side of Bilbo’s head, and the line of Thorin’s muscles was taught with tension and unsaid confessions, his fingers carding through Bilbo’s honey-golden curls intermittently, more to sooth himself than comfort Bilbo. In waiting, the smaller man had sucked in a gasp, his lungs devoid of air, his body practically thrumming with nervous energy and excitement. In a moment of rare clarity Bilbo’s hand reached out to trace the rugged features of Thorin’s face, blurred in the lack of light and the haze of his feelings, his touch trailing down his heaving chest.

Thorin whispered something in his language, an ancient dialect that was long forgotten in this world.

Bilbo didn’t understand the true meaning of his words, but he nodded all the same, consenting.

Their lips met in violent contact, melding together, warm and wet and willing.

It was much too quick, ending in a stuttered gasp and moans and the frantic jerking of hips. In the glimpses of splayed limbs and open mouths and hair framed against the pillowcase it was but a mere fragment of what would come to pass—the times where it was slower, and softer, almost reverent in the raw openness of their gazes and the gentle slide of fingers over bare skin and the controlled, torturous motions of hips or hands or mouths.

And then followed the third and last step to their relationship, whispered in the dim light of the room, skin slick with sweat and lips bruised with kisses and fingers leaving scorch marks over each other’s body.

“I love you.” It was not clear who said it.

“I love you too.” But it was clear that the sentiment was returned, wholeheartedly.

The words were repeated in the night and in the morning after, and again at breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, supper and every single moment from there forth. Sometimes it was whispered, sometimes it was said or screamed or spoken in the curl of a smile or the hand resting upon a cheek. It never wavered in its meaning, or in the true extent of the capacity to feel such an all-consuming emotion, not once.

Fíli and Kíli visited them frequently—it was a given, since Thorin had moved in with Bilbo in a span of four short days. Their presence was always welcome, as their mirth practically infectious, and Bilbo concluded if sunlight had sound it would lie in the brother’s laughter. The rest of the Company soon followed—Dwalin, Balin, Óin, Glóin, Nori, Dori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur. Those nights were filled with singing and the constant flurry of movement and an unbreakable sense of companionship, and Bilbo’s cottage was awash with a happiness and contentment he could not begin to describe.

In the warm glow of the morning—either spent in the twisted sheets of the bed or resting in the garden with a pipe at his lips—was what Bilbo liked the most, because the day was breaking anew and life was a promise of good. In those moments he felt like the stretch of time where he had been alone or grieving or sad were irrelevant—like it had been the price for what bliss he shared with Thorin now.

Six months, and he knew it would never cease—that we he had gained could not be lost.

Six months had undone the damage of love once lost.

Six months and the sunlight was warm on his face and the air was cool on his skin, but what set his heart ablaze and kept him alive even in the coldest of winter nights was Thorin.

He rolled over in their bed, his legs slipping between Bilbo’s instinctively, and his calloused hand coming to rest at the point of his hip. Bilbo had to smile, looking out at the glazed window pane at the bright, golden sun on the horizon, but something even more beautiful was behind him. Thorin’s sleep-addled smile was equal parts endearing and intimate, his features softer in the glow of restfulness. Love had finally soothed all Thorin’s internal wounds at having lost his kingdom and failed his people—and instead he had found another home to find peace.

Bilbo placed a kiss upon his lover’s waiting lips, threading their fingers together, and the clinking of their matching gold rings caused his lips to pull into a face-splitting grin. Tender in intent, and just as sweet, the kiss fulfilled Thorin in a way neither food or drink or possessions could. Seeing him like this—relaxed into a state of perfect contentment—was more than Bilbo could ever dare to ask for in his life.

And whatever harrowing trials Bilbo had faced so far, he was glad for second chances.

**Author's Note:**

> I saw the light fade from the sky  
> On the wind I heard a sigh  
> As the snowflakes cover my fallen brothers  
> I will say this last goodbye  
> —Billy Boyd, "The Last Goodbye"
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](http://diggitydamnsebastianstan.tumblr.com/), chilli peppers.


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